


What Goes Around...

by Llama1412



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s03e12-e13 The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2021-02-22 22:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23501116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: After the Year of Hell was over, things were supposed to get better.
Kudos: 1





	What Goes Around...

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on livejournal and whofic.com in 2011. Posted unedited.

It had taken a year, but it was finally over. The burning of Japan, the massacre of more than half the world's population, the aging of the Doctor and the torture of Jack and her family… they were all over now.

In the sense that it was no longer taking place, anyway. Martha knew that the burdens of the year wouldn't be lifted simply because the Doctor had done something clever. Especially not when he _forgave_ the man who had cause so much horror.

She couldn't understand it. There were things about the Doctor she had never understood, of course, but never before had he appeared so utterly alien. That man, who in actuality wasn't a man at all, had cradled the body of a creature responsible for genocide and begged him to stay alive, to stay with him.

That was the first time Martha had felt revulsion for the man she'd once thought she was in love with.

Looking back on it now, she didn't think it was really love. After all, she didn't truly know the Doctor at all, did she? How could she love someone that hide himself from her? But she'd certainly worshiped him, in a sense. He was the Doctor, the alien in the magical phone box that could travel through time and space and fix any problem. During their first travels together, there had probably been stars in her eyes.

She liked to think they hadn't stayed the whole time. The Doctor was flawed and she had begun to see it, particularly during the episodes with the chameleon arch and the weeping angels. Both times, stuck in the past in a time where she was looked down upon for no reason other than her skin, she'd seen the way the Doctor failed to notice, failed to understand just how hurtful the whole ordeal was for her. With John Smith, she could forgive him, at least outwardly. She may have held a grudge, but the Doctor really hadn't known any better. But while they were stuck in 1969 and she was left supporting them while the Doctor jabbered on about how interesting the mundane lives of humans were and how he'd never worked a job before. He still hadn't, not really. None of his employment situations had lasted long enough for him to have learned much. But he didn't seem to see the problem with that while Martha had to put up with having condescending pigs pinch her arse as she served them coffee and slam her down for even daring to look them in the eye.

The hero-worship had begun to fade then, she thought. She'd seen the flaws in the Doctor and she could easily hate him for them. The only problem was, she'd tried to kid herself that she could fix them. Her, Martha Jones, who had gotten the Doctor to speak about Gallifrey and could surely take things further and make him better, make him a man who noticed how he hurt others and who fixed that. And maybe he could even come to love her.

Meeting Jack on Malcassiro and then discovering the Master had thrown a bucket of cold water over her fantasy. Her return to reality had been harsh and painful, not only for her but for her family and for humanity.

But part of that was fixed now. Humanity had never suffered at the hands of the Master. And her family... they would heal. It would take time, a lot of time, but they would all heal eventually, herself included.

But her lost regard for the Doctor could never be fixed. She still loved him, in a way. He was still an amazing man who'd shown her the universe. But he wasn't a god and he wasn't a man and frankly, she could do better than him. She _would_ do better than him. She'd find a man who cared about her, who respected her, and who noticed when careless words and actions cut her to the quick.

She loved the Doctor, but she wouldn't be enamored by the magic he had to offer. And that meant that she had to tell him that she wouldn't be returning to the stars with him.

She tried to do what she could to make it easier for him. He'd treated her badly, but he'd changed her life for the better and he wasn't in a great place himself at the moment. She couldn't do anything to heal him, but she could lessen the sting. Even so, it was still one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do. And after a year traveling a broken world, that was saying rather a lot.

\--

She'd be lying if she said she didn't miss it, didn't miss the adventure and the glamour and the excitement of exploration and, of course, running. But that wasn't her life anymore and while her new life may not include meeting new species each week and saving the world en route, it wasn't bad.

Her parents had decided to try their hand at remaining together and she was honestly happy for them. She didn't truly believe that it could work - after all, it hadn't the first time. Tragedy had made them remember the best about one another, but it hadn't cured the problems. All it had done was bind them together through mutual feelings of despair. It was unhealthy, but they could heal and when they did, Martha doubted that there would be anything left to keep them together. Still, for the moment, they were happy with one another and she would savor that.

Her brother and his family still didn't really believe that they could have lived a whole year that the rest of the world couldn't remember, but he could see that they'd all been through something major and he tried to help as much as he could. The effort, at least, was appreciated.

Tish was probably the most broken of all of them. She'd never had Martha's self-reliance and to have everything she had depended on yanked out from under her had done a lot of damage. There was also the fact that she'd had to see, firsthand, a lot of what the Master did, his treatment of Jack at the forefront of that. Martha didn't know exactly what had happened up there, but somewhere in it all, Tish had become attached to Jack and his suffering had cut her deeply, especially since some of it seemed to the result of Jack protecting her and the others. Seeing people hurt when you could do nothing about it broke the soul in a way that was hard to repair. Seeing someone hurt because he had the courage to protect them, even while they could do nothing to return the favor or lessen the burden had destroyed Tish's spirit in a way nothing else ever had.

But it wasn't hopeless. Jack himself dedicated a lot of attention to Tish, introduced her to people that could understand some of what she was going through, and stood beside her as a friend on the days when she simply couldn't take it anymore and broke down. She would never be the same as she once was, but she wouldn't stay broken forever.

Martha herself was in a similar position. Jack helped her and her family where he could and UNIT offered the best care available to help them through the psychological hardships. Beyond that, though, was Tom Milligan. The sweet, caring doctor was everything Martha needed to begin to repair her and from the year, she knew that he would value her in a way the Doctor had forgotten to. Tom would never dismiss her pain or ignore signals that she was hurting. He was brave and compassionate and while the timelines now hadn't allowed him to lead the Resistance and die for her like it had in her memories, they still let him treat children with all the care and devotion he had on the battlefield. He was perfect and Martha honestly believed that she could love this man with all of her heart.

\--

The problem with that, she discovered some six months later, was that she knew parts of him that had never been. She knew who he had been when humanity had suffered and it had been his hands that could tend to their wounds. But while he held the potential to become that man, he really wasn't.

He didn't know about aliens or time travel. He thought her job with UNIT was akin to Doctors Without Borders, an international aide group, perhaps with more military influence than he understood, but certainly nothing to do with the extraterrestrial.

He didn't know about aliens and how could she tell him without it sounding absolutely mad? The public still firmly believed that aliens didn't exist, even after all they had been forced to confront. Tom was no different and she couldn't bear to hear him call her crazy.

So she'd never mentioned it. She let him think that UNIT was everything he believed it was and that her job was just like his.

She didn't realize that by doing so, she was hiding so much of who she was from him.

She'd learned from the Doctor that she couldn't love someone she didn't know enough about. She thought that her love for Tom was different, that it could last because she knew exactly what Tom was and loved him for it. But she'd forgotten the other side of the equation.

Tom's face, heartbroken and streaked with tears, as he told her that he couldn't take this anymore, that he couldn't love her when she wouldn't trust him, still remained every time she closed her eyes. She'd made the same mistake she'd hated the Doctor for and she'd paid for it.

Tom had left her and his eyes when she told him she loved him said that he didn't believe her.


End file.
